A CRIPPLE
It was all over; two doctors had been closetted in the bedroom for a very long time, and then Dudley and Rob, sitting on the garden steps, were told that everything had been successfully carried out, and Roy was as well and better than had been expected.
"I never saw such fortitude and calm self-control in my life," said Miss Bertram to her mother; "it was unnatural for a child of his age!"
"He is a true Bertram in spirit," said the grandmother, proudly; then she added with a sigh, "but, alas, not in body."
"Nurse," said Dudley that night as he was creeping into bed under her charge; "is Roy going to die?"
"I hope not," answered nurse, a little tearfully. "Doctor Grant says he'll make a good recovery, but he whispered himself to me—Master Roy did just before he took the sleeping draught—'Nurse I'll have my leg buried with me!' he says."
Dudley was silent for a minute, then he asked, solemnly, "And where is it, nurse?"
Nurse turned upon him tearfully and angrily,
"I believe as how you haven't one speck of feeling for that blessed darling, you naughty boy! To talk of such a thing in such a way with not a tear on your face! And to think of him laying there a helpless cripple, and him the owner of the biggest estate in the county!"
Dudley crept into bed feeling he had no more tears to shed, wondering when he would be allowed to see Roy again, and also wondering who was the possessor of his lost leg.